This book is a friendly, task-oriented introduction to FreeBSD, a free, open-source, industrial strength operating system that runs on a personal computer (the same computer that runs Microsoft Windows) for users new to both FreeBSD and UNIX.

Based on the UNIX developed at the University of California at Berkeley, FreeBSD is a major competitor to Linux for running Internet servers, the computers that handle electronic mail for many uses, provide files for download, and serve web pages.

With this book and the included installation CD-ROM, individual users can install FreeBSD and run a system that goes beyond Microsoft Windows in capability, stability, and flexibility, provides full source code, and makes available thousands of ready-to-install third-party software programs (most of them free) including electronic mail, desktop applications, Netscape, programming languages, graphics, and web servers and other Internet applications.